360 Finance grew out of Qihoo 360, the Chinese antivirus company, and used that company's huge base of users to find borrowers. Its app offered small personal loans. Banks and other lenders put up most of the money, and 360 Finance used data to decide who could borrow. When it listed in New York in December 2018, Chinese regulators had just cracked down on online lending, and investors had soured on the whole sector.

Credit Scored by Data

360 Finance started in 2016 in Shanghai, backed by the Qihoo 360 group. Many people in China had no credit history at banks. The company bet it could judge them from other data and offer them loans through an app. It earned fees for finding and screening borrowers. Over time it moved more of the lending risk onto its bank partners and sold its technology to them as a service.

Four Names, One Ticker

The company priced its American depositary shares at $16.50 on December 13, 2018, the low end of its range, and raised about $51 million. They began trading on Nasdaq the next day under QFIN. The company renamed itself 360 DigiTech in 2020 and Qifu Technology in 2023. It added a listing in Hong Kong under the code 3660. In 2025 shareholders approved a new English name, Qfin Holdings. The Nasdaq ticker has stayed QFIN.

Cover: Carp, Katsushika Taito II. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a carp (a Chinese symbol of wealth).